Tennessee 2018 Garden

Re: Tennessee 2018 Garden

Tue May 08, 2018 2:18 am

We had 20 mph wind all day, full sun an 79 degrees. The soil dried out good enough I can to some work.

My potato plants are 6" to 10" tall and the stems have about 25 roots growing out the sides on the lower 1" of the plants. I shoveled enough soil on the potato plants to cover the roots so roots have some where to grow. Once every week I will need to shovel more soil on the plants for more roots to grow.

There is nothing else to do but wait an see if, corn, peas & beans grow.

Tomato plants have taken good root plants are 2" taller and much darker green color than before. All this rain an mud never seems to hurt tomato plants or the pepper plants.

Weather man claims it is going to rain again tomorrow.

I had about 200 potato cuttings left over that I do not need so I listed them free on craigslist and about a dozen people wanted them. Someone came and took 50 cuttings then another person came and took the rest.

Re: Tennessee 2018 Garden

Wed May 09, 2018 6:29 pm

I planted 3 rows of wine today weather man says we might get more rain tonight. We are having more 20 mph wind the spinners are a blur but the camera makes it look like they are stopping. A few pea seeds have germinated but no corn or beans yet. It is sunny and 85 degrees corn & beans still might grow. I am bottling another 6 gallons of red wine today this will add another 32 bottles to the wine cellar.

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Last edited by applestar on Thu May 10, 2018 5:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason:A typo corrected per request.

Re: Tennessee 2018 Garden

Thu May 10, 2018 2:29 pm

After 2 days of no rain, full sun, 20 mph wind, 85 degrees, it rained very hard this morning 6:30am sun came out for 2 hrs now it is raining again. Peas & beans are growing but no corn yet. I have lost 7 potato plants from cut worms. No problem potatoes can not be killed by cut worms or frost, no matter how often plants get killed they will grow back. Up to now I have not fertilized anything in the garden, last night 7pm I mixed 1 pint of wood ash with 5 gallons of water then watered my tomatoes & potatoes. I mixed up 3 buckets of water. My onions & garlic need nitrogen I plan to remove all the soil around the bulbs so they will grow very large.

Re: Tennessee 2018 Garden

Fri May 11, 2018 12:18 am

It is interesting to notice how beans can push there way through this hard dry soil like little hydraulic jacks. Peas are doing the same thing. Beans & peas have broken up all the soil in their 3'x20' patch it looks like the worlds smallest earth quake broke up all the soil in those 2 spots. It is easy to tell where each row of corn is planted because corn has the soil lifted up and cracked open in a straight line the full length of the row like a volcano does to the earth then corn comes up like pointed arrows. About 1/2 my beans are up, about 1/2 my corn is up, about 1/2 my peas are up. 2 more weeks, corn, beans, peas, will be 6 to 8 inches tall. The tomato seeds I planted and covered with wooden blocks have germinated this morning and full sun 2nd 1/2 of the day turned the white leaves dark green. Tomato seed are easier to plant directly in the garden than plant trays inside the house much less work & seeds are up in about 4 days. I saved a lot of seeds from last years garden that saved me a bunch of money & I did not have to drive 18 miles round trip to buy seeds. About 1 or 2 more days everything will be up. I have 1000s of saved flower seeds I planted them in many places this evening they will be coming up soon too.

There are no honey bees. I have been watching for bees every day for weeks and no bees. I have been letting white clover grow in the yard for the bees but no bees. Grass needs to be cut soon maybe next week.

Re: Tennessee 2018 Garden

Sat May 12, 2018 12:02 am

I needed 4 more plants to finish 1 of the tomato rows so Monday I planted a few seeds in 4 places then covered them with a small board to hold moisture an Thursday the seeds had germinated. Now plants are nice and green after being in the sun 2 days. I only need 1 plant in each location so I will use a kitchen spoon to scoop the extra plants out to transplant at my sons house.

Last year we threw all the kitchen scraps into the garden & this year there are 100s of volunteer melons growing everywhere.

Re: Tennessee 2018 Garden

Sun May 13, 2018 11:33 pm

I harvested a 2 ft tall onion plant today then folded it several times to fit on a hamburger we cooked on the BBQ grill. I have about 400 onion plants it won't hurt anything to eat them as they grow larger.

I caught a small toad in the garden then released it in the potato patch. The toad acted like it was right at home in that jungle of potato plants.

I sprinkled wood ash on my tomato plants today like I do every year weather report is 4 days of thunder storms starting Tuesday. I also put wood ash on my, onions, garlic & potatoes. There is lots of P&K, Lime & minerals in wood ash. Lime is good for BER.

We harvested more Rhubarb today to make sauce, 1 part Rhubard, 2 parts strawberries, sugar to taste. We baked a yellow cake too. Sauce over cake taste too much like strawberries to me but wife likes it. Next time we try 1 part Rhubarb with 1 part strawberries. I think sauce can use a little bit of cinnamon too and a spoon of Orange Marmalade Jam in place of some of the sugar.

Re: Tennessee 2018 Garden

Wed May 16, 2018 12:03 pm

It finally rained yesterday evening after no rain an 90+ degrees for a week. Potato plants are looking good. Peas & beans are small they needed the rain. Okra & Asian potatoes have not come up yet. Onions & garlic look good. Sweet potatoes, melons & corn need the rain too, 4 more days of rain in the forecast. We harvested small amounts of Rhubarb 3 times to make sauce it is good over cake & frozen yogurt with whip cream. Tomato plants are doing great.

Re: Tennessee 2018 Garden

Wed May 16, 2018 8:37 pm

Dog has destroyed about 20% of the corn crop running through the garden barking at people. I built this fence today in about 3 hrs work. I hammered wooden stakes in the ground 2 ft apart them put thin wood strips zig zag between the stakes. Dog can not run straight through the corn anymore she has to run around. In about a month corn will be taller then fence can come down. Click on picture it gets bigger, click pic again it get even bigger. I made good use of that free trailer load of wood strips.

Re: Tennessee 2018 Garden

Thu May 17, 2018 12:05 pm

rainbowgardener wrote:Very nice! Why take the fence down later?

My original garden plan was to plant melons & sweet potatoes in the center of the garden then after corn is harvested an gone melons & sweet potato vines can grow into the area where corn was. Also when white potatoes and peas are harvested an gone on the other side of garden melons & sweet potato vines can grow into that area too. Fence needs to be gone so melon & sweet potato vines can grow in that direction, I was planning to make vines grow in a circle away so fence may not need to be gone for 2 months. I made sure to have 3 feet of space on both sides of the fence for the tiller I will probably need to run tiller through the garden in 2 more weeks to remove unwanted grass & weeds that come up. So far so good no weeds or grass anywhere except wet corner of garden that is still shaded by tall trees. Sun is getting high up now it won't take much to keep grass & weeds gone from the garden for the next 3 months in the dry season. June to August little rain means few weeds and no garden work except harvesting crops. We are still planning to spend the month of June camping in Michigan garden will be fine no work to do until July then time to harvest & put vegetables in mason jars. I like mason jars food is good for 4 years but wife likes the freezer but food gets freezer burn in zip lock bags after 6 months so it needs to be eaten before it goes bad.

Re: Tennessee 2018 Garden

Fri May 18, 2018 4:08 pm

It rained last night & potato plants are falling over they were standing up nice an straight yesterday. I was hoping to shovel more soil on the plants today before they all fall over, oh well that is what potato plants do. Several potatoes plants blossomed a few days ago an the rest of the plants are ready to blossom. Pea patch is looking good except for WANDO peas only 7 our of 250 seeds germinated. I ordered sugar beet seeds yesterday to take the place of wando. I hope sugar beets will be FREE sugar for making wine. Some of the tomatoes are 2 ft tall now the only fertilizer I have used is wood ash they are due to have more wood ash fertilizer tomorrow. Bean crop is up an looking good about 800 bean plants. Both types of sweet potatoes look good & both type melons all look good too. Corn is looking better they needed rain. I water new tomato plants and pepper plant for a few days to help them get started but I never water my garden that forces plants to grow deep roots in search of their own water when 100 degree weather arrives plants will be fine all summer with what little rain we get in the dry season.